Literary Studies // Fall 2018

Myth and Legend 3 surveys stories of elves, fairies, wizards, witches, etc., and explores the allure of all things marvelous, strange, and magical.  The theme of this particular section is “Tolkien on Page and Screen.”  Texts covered include The Hobbit, The Silmarillion, The Lord of the Rings, and more. 

Myth and Legend 3 surveys stories of elves, fairies, wizards, witches, etc., and explores the allure of all things marvelous, strange, and magical. The theme of this particular section is “Tolkien on Page and Screen.” Texts covered include The Hobbit, The Silmarillion, The Lord of the Rings, and more.

Reading and discussion of great narratives from Homer’s Odyssey to the present, considering works from a variety of cultures and time periods in order to develop an understanding of their ideas, structures, styles, and cultural values.

Examination of sports and the techniques by which it is treated in various literary works, usually in more than one genre.

Literary study of nature writing; writing from the natural sciences; and canonical poetry, fiction, and essays through an ecological lens. Introduces students to ecocritical thought and environmental literary history.

How to read fiction intelligently; this course promotes understanding and appreciation of the range, values, techniques, and meanings of fiction.

Surveys authors, periods, and themes of British literature from the later eighteenth through the twentieth centuries.

Selected literary texts, such as The Scarlett Letter, Moby Dick, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Walden, Huckleberry Finn, Absalom, Absalom!, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Native Son, and Beloved, closely read and discussed as to their literary qualities and their cultural significance.

A survey of literature written by black American authors. Close attention is paid to the history of black literature and to the historical context in which it was written, as well as to the texts of major works by black writers.

Study of important works of Greek and Roman literature, their intrinsic literary values, and their influence on later European and American writing and thinking.

A study of selections from the Old and New Testaments as examples of Hebrew and early Christian literature.

World literature in translation. A comparative and chronological survey of masterpieces of Eastern and Western literature.

Considers the relation of written Shakespeare plays to film versions from a wide variety of times and cultures, e.g., the United States, England, France, Italy, Japan, Denmark, India, and Russia.

Introduction to literary theory and practice.  Close reading of and significant writing about selected literary texts informed by a variety of critical and/or theoretical perspectives.

This course explores legal conflicts through literature. It uses the narratives created by the cat-and-mouse of procedural dramas, emotionally charged trial scenes, and dramatic courtroom struggles, to introduce different schools of jurisprudence, and to critically examine the decisions made by those with social and legal governing power.

A survey of seventeenth-, eighteenth-, and nineteenth-century American literature from European colonization to the U.S. Civil War.

An introduction to feminist approaches to the study of literature, including poetry, drama, fiction, and/or autobiography. Examines how gender intersects with race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and class in shaping authorship, reading, and representation.

A study through cultural and theoretical works of the impact of imperialism on the ruling nations.

A study of Third World Literature, film, and theory that emerged during and after Western rule.

An introduction to the detective genre, examining its origins, its characteristics, and its intersections with empiricism, forensic science, race, class, gender, sex, and empire.

A historical and critical survey of nineteenth- and twentieth-century short stories, including Irish, British, American, and Continental authors.

A historically oriented survey of British prose fiction from the eighteenth to the twenty-first centuries.  This course will show you why the British novel is “classic,” but also how it is a profoundly weird, weird form.